http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axe_murder_incident
How plausible is it for The Korean war to restart after this?
How plausible is it for The Korean war to restart after this?
Plausability check: Korean war Restarts in 1976.
- Thread starter Fenrir_Angerboda
- Start date
MacCaulay
Banned
Well, it came at the end of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Korean_War.
- November 2, 1966: KPA ambush on UN patrol, 6 US casualties, 1 South Korea casualties
- August 29, 1967: KPA raid on Camp Bonifas
- January 21, 1968: Assassination attempt on South Korean President Park Chung Hee, The Blue House Raid
- January 23, 1968: Seizure of USS Pueblo off the east coast of the DPRK
- October 30, 1968: Ulchin-Samchok landings by 120 men of the KPA 124th Army Unit
- April 15, 1969: KPAF fighters shoots down a US Navy EC-121M aircraft over the Sea of Japan (East Sea).
- 1971 Silmido Incident: Elite ROK troops trained to kill Kim Il Sung mutinied and went to Seoul.
- August 18, 1976: Axe Murder Incident on the DMZ by KPA soldiers
Now, had they downed the other helicopter that was carrying a US General near Panmunjom right after that...then things might have started right down the slippery slope. It's Korea, and the local commanders have a lot of latitude. If that helo had been downed and some commander on the scene decided to start firing at the NK machine gun positions that did it, then that could spark a larger fight.
whoops, never saw that.
I see...
lets see, 1978, Vietnam ended about three years earlier, so it would take quite a bit to get the US back into a war. If it joins the war.
MacCaulay
Banned
I did a post for it during the last round of "North Korea's going to nuke us!" craziness, but no one bit. It's cool!
I always figured that it was a ripe time for North Korea, more so because the US was in Vietnam and perhaps Pacific Command had another war to deal with.
Until 1991, the US never placed a higher priority on troops than European Command. Throughout the whole of Vietnam, EUCOM never gave out troops to PACCOM. So if the North Korean army made a jump against the DMZ in the 70s, PACCOM would have to deal with it with whatever was in theatre or wasn't earmarked to go to Europe in the event of a Soviet invasion.
The 82nd and 101st Airborne, the 1st Cavalry, and whatever else isn't attached. Then scrape together whatever the Allies have that isn't tagged for Europe.
so essentialy it'll be North Korea's Fairly Modern army, Possibly supported by China and the USSR, against the South Korean's also fairly modern army, and whatever troops the US, and allies can spare.
although, how much attention would China and Russia give North Korea, considering Vietnam is still going on/wrapping up?
seems like a fair match.
The world is pretty fucked, unless the Soviets are ok with one of their client states getting bombed back into the Stone Age.
Due to rotation and other pressures that the involvement in Vietnam put on the US forces in Korea, remarkably little was done to change the standard 1950's Cold War operating procedures of "use them or lose them" with respect to tactical nuclear weapons. Commanders with control of tactical nuclear warheads in the form of SR missiles and artillery shells were still training to use them within the first 24 hours of war if North Korea invaded South Korea as late as 1980, as many of these were concentrated within 25 miles of the border.
Morale is going to be rather higher than in Vietnam, but preparedness for conflict will be much lower. The nukes will come out early, and then hopefully the Soviets convince the North Koreans to give Kim Sung-Il a lead injection to the head before everything brews up.
Due to rotation and other pressures that the involvement in Vietnam put on the US forces in Korea, remarkably little was done to change the standard 1950's Cold War operating procedures of "use them or lose them" with respect to tactical nuclear weapons. Commanders with control of tactical nuclear warheads in the form of SR missiles and artillery shells were still training to use them within the first 24 hours of war if North Korea invaded South Korea as late as 1980, as many of these were concentrated within 25 miles of the border.
Morale is going to be rather higher than in Vietnam, but preparedness for conflict will be much lower. The nukes will come out early, and then hopefully the Soviets convince the North Koreans to give Kim Sung-Il a lead injection to the head before everything brews up.
MacCaulay
Banned
I think China was fighting an on again/off again ground war against Vietnam at the time. They didn't like each other very much.
While I can't say much for the Sino-Soviet response, I can say with a good certainty that as far as US allies go, they've got...not a lot.
There's the UK, but they don't have alot they can get there in a hurry. There's Australia and New Zealand, and they're probably the best option. Australia in 1976 was operating an escort carrier group, and would've been in the best position to provide immediate support to the US/ROK forces on the peninsula.
Canada's Airborne Regiment was unavailable, as it was tasked for operations on Cyprus at the time. They would have lift capability to transport the Royal Canadian Rifles or the PPCLI infantry regiments on short notice.
A lot of the problem for the US/ROK forces is that the world just isn't looking their way at that particular moment.
nnhh, I was hoping to keep Nukes out of this, but I suppose that would be ASB.
Would Morale be higher?
I imagined it would be the same or lower than in Vietnam.
MacCaulay
Banned
Well, you've got to remember that training doesn't always reflect reality. When I was in the army not 5 years ago, we were training to fight the Soviets (Red Stars and everything!) and Iranians, logic be damned, because we didn't have a more threatening enemy to fight.
But that doesn't mean they'll use them. That just means they're trained to do it, and that there's probably other things they know how to do also, like kill T-55s with LAWs and M-48s that they've got at hand.
Probably higher, I'd guess. Especially if the North Koreans were coming over the border. If this is something that they start, then there is that big of defensiveness that kicks in.
I ment latter in the war, but I see your point.
If they do use nukes, I kinda imagined either a salt the earth or suicide use. Y'know, let them over run the area, and then nuke it.
Er...I'm pretty sure they would use them. My info is from a book detailing the American and North Korean war plans in Korea during the 1950's through 1980's.
The book implied that there would be a desperate attempt to move them all back from the line, but that control was so poor and that the North Koreans would move pretty rapidly in some places, leading to early initial use.
So, maybe a 12-24 hour conventional war where the North Koreans take huge losses but make decent progress, followed by a panicked spree of nukes going off on North Korean ground troops, followed by the Russians axing Kim Sung-Il or giving the Americans the go-ahead to kill their retarded allies over the red phone or starting thermonuclear war. Still makes for a hell of a scenario, any way you look at it.
MacCaulay
Banned
I think it's just a difference of opinion, then, but I'm willing to lean towards your facts since you can probably cite them.
Myself, the whole landwar on the peninsula with tanks and infantry seems a bit more entertaining than nuclear combat. And there are ways around that: intelligence reports prompt 8th Army to move the warheads back towards Pusan, etc.
Of course it's more "interesting", but in the end there's no way that the US will allow a North Korean "win", and I think it's only a matter of days, if not hours before, say, Seoul is under North Korean fire. And then the nukes come out.
I think the more interesting question is, "What happens if we rule out blowing the world to hell over Korea?" Can the Soviets replace Sung with someone very rapidly, once they see the US go to DEFCON 2 and after a couple tactical warheads are used?
If yes, then we'll see a Soviet puppet state in North Korea that China really dislikes (like North Vietnam) that could drive the Chinese deeper into the arms of the United States earlier. Is North Korea going to pay reparations (how)? What will the Americans and South Koreans insist on from the Soviets in return for not unifying Korea twenty-five years late? How will South Korea reevaluate its position vis-a-vis the United States, once it has suffered serious war and nuclear devices being detonated on its territory, yet not receiving reunification or anything positive in return?
If no, then the Soviets have to allow reunification by the South (and, therefore, the Americans) to take place. This does not bode well for anyone: the Americans, South Koreans, North Koreans, Soviets, Chinese, you name it:
-Americans don't want another Vietnam, but can they really just stop at the DMZ and say, "Ok, they're gone now, everything goes back to the way it was before"? What about rebuilding South Korea, especially with its painstakingly built-up infrastructure and economy in ruins? Unifying Korea isn't going to do anything for rebuilding relations with the PRC, to boot...
-The South Koreans may like the general idea of reunification, except for the whole economic aspect, and possible guerilla activity, and angering China. Their country is a shambles once again...how many times must we rebuild, people will ask.
-The North Koreans will fight tooth and nail unless they are absolutely, brutally, expensively crushed by the US.
-China's going to be unhappy, I'm pretty sure.
-The Soviets lose massive face...where can they regain it? Afghanistan? More assistance to Vietnam?
* * *
I think the greater geopolitical implications of non-status quo on the Korean Peninsula are extremely interesting.
Why on earth would the US use nuclear weapons in Korea? By 1976 I'd guess the South Korean Armed Forces alone would have been capable enough to stop any North Korean invasion on it's own. The Vietnam war ended the bad reputation of South Korean troops gained from early Korean War. Any North Korean sizable advance is ASB stuff.
A 1976 conflict would probably mean a Soviet intervention to save NK from being crushed, and above all, not to get under Chinese control. The damage to South Korea would be rather minuscule and the whole invasion might be actually economically advantageous as it would inject probably huge amounts of public money to light and heavy industries.
The largest problem for US leadership would be keeping the SK forces under leash and not provoking Soviet intervention.
Dan Reilly The Great
Banned
I could see the Soviets and chinese giving the US tacit consent to take out NK, sort of a quid pro quo for Vietnam. That being the case without Soviet and Chinese aid I could see the ROK/US forces gaining air superiority after about a month and then pounding the NK army to pieces from the air. In the end you'd probably see a mostly unified Korean peninsula with a region in the north annexed by the chinese as per some agreement the US makes with them in exchange for non interference in the whole affair.
MacCaulay
Banned
Well, what we're looking at here is the fact that PACCOM and the US military at large is still retooling from Vietnam. They're still tired. It's going to be a different war than the one they've been fighting for years. Yes, it's one they're able to do, but it'll still be a hard one for them. SAC, though, will have a ball.
Hellooooo Strategic Bombing!
If you bothered to read my earlier posts, you'd see why.
Short answer: US forward positioning of tactical-level nuclear weapons and a "use-them-or-lose-them" solution to their imminent capture (even assuming a small, 25 miles or so NK advance, never mind that the US Army in OTL assumed that they would probably be able to achieve decent results on the outset of war) demonstrated in all of the exercises on the peninsula before 1980 means that tacnukes are used within the first 12 to 48 hours.
EDIT: From a source that specifically details the war plans of the United States and South Korea during the Cold War. More probable than "I guess", though I would be the first to say that they can probably stop an NK advance pretty quickly...pretty quickly, however, is not soon enough.
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Pretty much what you said here. Interestingly, such a war has the possibility of bringing the US out of malaise (decisive victory and reunification of Korea) or putting it deeper into one (occupation, the use of nuclear weapons, etc.). Take your pick.
It's at my library. I don't recall which book it was, but a quick browse through the library catalog leads me to believe it might have been Pacific Powderkeg : American Nuclear Dilemmas in Korea.